Born and raised in Tunbridge Wells, she was educated from age 15 at the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology in Croydon.

She rose to fame after it was reported in the British papers in 2005 that she had earned a commendation for her bravery[2][3] whilst serving with the Royal Anglian Regiment in Iraq for wrestling two rifles from a prisoner following a road traffic accident.

[citation needed] Hodge handed over the Miss England crown to Jessica Linley in September 2010, and returned to active duty in the Army.

In 2018, she revealed that she suffered from sexist abuse from her male colleagues during her deployment in Iraq, and kept receiving insulting messages from them even after her retirement.

[1] Hodge has a book called Combats to Catwalk which tells the story of how she went from army soldier to beauty queen.